Moving

Other things I'll miss.

The Leaning Tree

More embracing are your branches
than any arms I have ever known.
Are you a juniper, a cottonwood, a madrone?
I long to know your name, know you,
great spiraling mother of a tree,
Medusa hair wildly tendriling
as if you were planted upside down,
roots thirsting for the sky.
I see
your trunk warted, roped and frayed,
bark peeling to reveal
a dry light gray,
with one limb propped at a bend
by a man-made crutch,
I see
you are old,
perhaps tired, and yet,
and yet, you welcome me
as if to say,
Lean in. I am your womb of waiting.
Let me shield you from the unexpected
drops of rain, now
and for one day more.